The Journey of a naive wanderer. Recently updated with pictures!
Serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Eastern Kazakhstan until June 2006, I taught English in a serene and antiquated village called Tarkhanka, snuggled among the hills in the Ulba River valley.

The comments on this blog are the writer's only and do not reflect the opinions of Peace Corps or the United States.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

15 minutes in Kaz

I knew that I wore my nice blue striped shirt to the Swearing-in for a good reason. During the ceremony, I was asked to give an interview for a news channel. For every swearing in, news crews are invited by the U.S. embassy to film the ceremony and take interviews. Well, since I was there and my Russian was pretty good, they asked me. I gave an interview completely in Russian, and I must say was really nervous, because I don't like interviews. I guess I always think I might not handle the pressure of tough questions. That's my personality - to express complete thoughts. I do it in writing, speaking, whatever. But I did alright. The Peace Corps staff I worked with at training said she saw me and it was really good. It wasn't until I got back to site, that I discovered, much to my chagrin, that the news channel was national and I was being watched in Tarkhanka, too. Nina and my director, Nina Vasiliyevna, saw me on television. I don't know what questions that they asked me made it into the cut, but there were some that I didn't know how to answer. Did I mention that I don't like interviews? I don't like interviews, and that's one reason why. They asked me if I had a girlfriend(?!) and asked what I thought about Americans coming and finding wives here and such. I answered that that's good for them, I guess, but I haven't found anyone, for such is love. Another question, after he rephrased it because he was using big words I didn't understand, was basically, "What about Kazakhstan was disappointing to you?" Now, seriously, you can't answer that except with, "Nothing disappointed me." And really, as I explained, I had no expectations, so I wasn't disappointed, since most Americans - I was included with them before I came - know little to nothing about Central Asian countries. But still, I had a better time with the interview, than another volunteer, who gave an interview in Kazakh. They asked him all sorts of strange questions, and because he went right before me, as I sat listening to the questions, I got nervous about what questions they qould ask me. I hate interviews.